It was about this time last year when the Summit League men’s basketball tournament looked to be NDSU’s to lose. The Bison had the Summit Player of the Year in Taylor Braun, South Dakota State no longer had Nate Wolters and the Bison had the veteran team with the veteran center (Marshall Bjorklund) and playmaking forward (TrayVonn Wright). The Bison also had a defensive stopper in forward Kory Brown, always an important role in any title-contending team.

This year is one big muddled mixture. If there ever was a year when a lower seed could win the tournament, this would be it. The Bison are the No. 2 seed, but they went overtime in both regular season games with No. 7 Denver, their first round opponent Saturday. I think this tournament is going to blow up from the conventional way of higher seeds advancing. So here’s my prediction:

Reasoning: South Dakota is hot winning five of its last six including a convincing win over the Jackrabbits to close the regular season. The Coyotes have six players, six, who averaged double figures in scoring in Summit League games with Tyler Larson one of the top overall players in the league in scoring and rebounding. They’re a veteran team loaded with juniors and seniors, look out for this team. SDSU has one of its better defensive teams under Scott Nagy, but I’m not convinced there’s enough overall scoring to get through three games. Brown’s bad knee is not a good sign for the Bison. Like a shutdown corner in football, you need a defensive stopper in tournament time and if he’s not 100 percent, that’s pretty tough. Lawrence Alexander can carry a team in a weekend series, but to do it for three games may be asking too much. Oral Roberts is intriguing after bombing the Bison, but that may have been an emotionally-charged win as much as anything after one of its top players was suspended. Over three games, reality will set in for the Golden Eagles. Fort Wayne has a chance with center Steve Forbes, but the Mastodons are also coming in losers of two of their last three including to a very average Nebraska-Omaha team.

The Summit League Tournament begins on Saturday at the new Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, plenty of anticipation about getting a look at the new building. Jeff and Jody Norstedt will be heading down for coverage over the weekend. Here’s a look at the brackets, let’s start with the men:

Summit League Men’s Bracket

NDSU will play Denver on Saturday night around 8:30. The Bison swept the Pioneers this season, but both were overtime wins, 61-54 in Fargo (that was the game where NDSU had just 16 points at halftime) and 73-69 in Denver (that was the game where Brett Olson hit a half court shot at the buzzer to force overtime). I’m not sure this the best matchup for NDSU, the Pioneers have given them a hard time this season and head coach Dave Richman told me this matchup is difficult just because of the offense and style Denver runs. The Bison will need to put Thursday’s beatdown from Oral Roberts in the rearview mirror quickly. A win on Saturday would be huge, considering the extra day off for the semifinals, no team since NDSU has entered the league has won the tournament playing three straight days.

As for the rest of the field, SDSU should get by Western Illinois, but could face a tough Fort Wayne team in the semis, the Mastodons get USD on Sunday. In NDSU’s bracket, the Bison could see Oral Roberts again if they advance, the Golden Eagles matchup with IUPUI in the late game on Sunday night. ORU eliminated NDSU from the Summit League tourney in back to back years in 2010 and 2011.

On the women’s side, NDSU enters as the six seed and will try to end a five year drought at the tournament on Sunday. The Bison have not won a game in Sioux Falls since 2009, the longest drought in the conference. NDSU faces off with Oral Roberts on Sunday at 2:30, the Bison split with the Golden Eagles, winning in Fargo in January, before losing big in Tulsa in the middle of February. ORU is led by 6’7 Vicky McIntyre (who by the way used the grad transfer rule that Vernon Adams just used at EWU; McIntyre graduated from Florida) and had 13 points and 18 rebounds against NDSU three weeks ago.

Summit League Women’s Bracket

South Dakota is the defending tourney champ and the top seed, and I may be crazy for saying it, the favorite. The Coyotes have shown all year they’re tough and not intimidated by SDSU, I think it’s the Jacks and Coyotes who will be playing next Tuesday afternoon for the dance and it has the potential of another great game.

Much more on the tournament as the week continues, I’m heading to Minot for the Girls State B Tournament, but Jeff and Jody will have you covered!

Image

NDSU heads to Tulsa today with the opportunity to win the Summit League title tomorrow night with a win against Oral Roberts and some help from South Dakota State.

Brett Winkelman and NDSU won a huge game at Oral Roberts in 2009.

This trip takes me back six years ago when the Bison went to ORU needing a win to lock up the Summit League championship. Or so they thought. All heck broke loose the night before, when league commissioner Tom Douple informed then Bison AD Gene Taylor and coach Saul Phillips that they would have to beat the Golden Eagles to take the top seed, which was completely the OPPOSITE of what NDSU and everyone else was led to believe that week. Going in Phillips told the media that even if NDSU lost to ORU, the Bison would get the top seed because of a higher RPI rating. Douple said that was not the case and if ORU won, they would win the title. What made this news even more frustrating was at the time the Golden Eagles were humming, winners of 35 straight home conference games.

What happened remains a great night in NDSU basketball history. Ben Woodside scored 29 points, Brett Winkleman chipped in 21 and the Bison won their first Summit League championship. The trip back to Fargo lives in infamy in terms of celebration, I remember greeting the team at the airport and you could still see the excitement in their faces the next morning.

To me that signaled a changing of the guard in the Summit. Oral Roberts had won four straight regular season titles prior to NDSU winning and the Golden Eagles won just one title after that. The Bison and SDSU have combined to win four since then(counting 2015). That night signified to me and many others that the Bison were going to be a factor in the league race and it all comes full circle tomorrow night.

Once again, NDSU could be involved in a regular season league tiebreaker situation, only this time, there’s more on the line. Recall in November when the Bison football team got the Missouri Valley Football Conference autobid after finishing tied with Illinois State, a team it did not play. The Valley tiebreaking procedures went all the way to the third and final criteria, which was the Gridiron Power Index. NDSU had the higher rating, thus got the nod — although it really didn’t mean much because both teams were virtually guaranteed spots and first round byes in the FCS playoffs.

Basketball is different, and here’s what NDSU needs this week: a win over Oral Roberts and a South Dakota State loss at South Dakota. Anything different and the Jackrabbits will be declared regular season champions and here’s the significance: the regular season champ gets an autobid to the N.I.T. should it fail to reach the NCAA tournament. If NDSU and SDSU both win this week, the Jacks would get the nod because the criteria goes to whichever team had the better record against the next-highest finisher, in this case the team that matters would be South Dakota. NDSU split with the Coyotes while the Jacks would have swept. The other two teams in the top five, Fort Wayne and ORU, would both be moot in the discussion because NDSU would have swept ORU and both split with Fort Wayne. Sixth-place Denver and IUPUI, both at 5-9, are out of the discussion.

By the way, this is unofficial. Nothing surprises me in tiebreaker criteria.

NDSU’s men’s basketball team continues to rack up the wins at home, taking care of IUPUI last night 57-48, despite falling behind 9-2, you can watch highlights of the game here. With the win, the Bison moved back into a first place tie with SDSU at 11-3 in the Summit League, each with two games remaining, while Fort Wayne and Oral Roberts have faint hopes of making the top two. Here’s what everyone has left:

It’s this simple, if NDSU and SDSU win on Saturday that means they will clinch no worse than the two seed for the Summit League Tournament, which is huge since that gives you the extra day off from the quarters to the semifinals. A win tomorrow for the Bison is anything but a foregone conclusion since the Mastodons are the hottest team in the league, winners of seven straight, they haven’t lost in a month, January 21st. I know I had a couple of people ask me about the tiebreaker procedure if the top two teams are tied, here it is straight from the Summit League:

Tiebreaker Procedures
Tiebreaker procedures shall be used ONLY to determine seeds for the League tournament. Regular season standings shall stand.

If there are multiple ties, the ties shall be broken in descending order. (i.e., a tie at the #1 position will be broken before any others).
Once a tie is broken using the procedures below, it shall remain broken for purposes of all future comparisons.
Two-team Tiebreaking Criteria. The following criteria should be applied (in order) to break ties between two teams:
Results of head-to-head competition between the two tied teams.
Comparison of each tied team’s record against the team occupying the highest position in the standings continuing down through the standings until a team gains an advantage.
When arriving at another group of tied teams while comparing records, use each team’s record against the collective tied teams as a group (prior to that group’s own tie-breaking procedure) rather than the performance against individual tied teams.
If a tie still cannot be broken after applying criteria (1), (2) and (3), it will be broken by comparing each tied team’s RPI (based upon the RPIratings.com Report issued on the morning following the last regular season League game).
Multiple-Team Tiebreaking Criteria. The following criteria should be applied to break ties between more than two teams:
Results of each tied team’s collective record against the other teams tied for the same position.
If multiple ties still remain, then each tied team’s record shall be compared to the team or group (if 2 or more are tied) occupying the highest position in the standings continuing down through the standings until a team gains an advantage.
If the above results in two teams remaining, the two-team tiebreaker is used.
If a tie involving three or more teams still cannot be broken after applying criteria (1) and (2), it will be broken by comparing each tied team’s RPI (based upon the RPIratings.com Report issued on the morning following the last regular season League game.)

Hard to believe that Lawrence Alexander is down to his final two games at home. One thing about a nine-team league, the home games go fast. Today at practice, junior forward Kory Brown was asked about IPFW being L.A.’s last game in Fargo. “It’s sad that it’s L.A.’s last game here at home,” he said. “Ooh, man, thinking about it kind of gives me shivers so I’ll just let that one go for now.”

Alexander has put this team on its back, the No. 1 reason the Bison are two wins from reaching 20 for the season. Nobody, absolutely nobody, expected this group to be in position to reach that seasonal victory milestone. Alexander is averaging 19.3 points per game and is third in the country in minutes per game at 38.3 a night. It will be a lonely Senior Night on Saturday with Alexander being the only one on the team. He came in with Chris Kading and Joel Lindberg, but Kading redshirted and Lindberg had his career cut short by injury.

More than that, he’s been rock solid around us media types for four years. I can see why Saul Phillips and now Dave Richman love coaching the guy. So, on Saturday afternoon, give it up for this guy. He deserves it.